Notes: Like everyone else, I think the dialogue, characters, and gameplay for ME3 are amazing, but I'm pretty damn conflicted about the endings. As for the upcoming announcement, I think it was planned for one month after game release, to coincide with PAX East. I'll be disappointed but not injured in my loyalty to BioWare if this isn't the case...
Updates will continue to be slow, but I hope my readers will stick with me for the ride.
All standard disclaimers still apply. Although I don't own the characters or universe, I do work hard on my little stories. Please don't print or repost without my knowledge. Thanks.
Chapter-specific notes: Takes place at the beginning of ME2. (servantofclio-I appreciate the feedback. I definitely want to write some more ME3 stuff for you...I just don't know when the muse will cooperate!)
And thanks again to all the people whoe at the very beginning of ME2. 've taken time to encourage me by adding me or my story to favorites or alerts. And, most especially, thanks to those few who've written reviews. I welcome your interest, thoughts, and ideas-even constructive criticism. Your support is always appreciated, and often instrumental to maintaining the inspiration necessary to develop a story.
Joker was drawn back into the farthest corner of the pod, hunched and huddled in on himself, a wounded animal protecting a vulnerable and painful spot. His eyes were wide and wild. The shape of his mouth mirrored the posture, drawing in, tightening up, a rounded gap of pain.
Kaidan felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. He'd seen rachni, thorian creepers, and husks. He'd seen them blown into bits by grenades, seen their heads fountain up in the explosive aftermath of a well-timed sniper shot, seen them gutted by the blade extension on Wrex's shotgun... and he'd never felt this close to throwing up. His head throbbed in painful, broken thumps, as if the shrapnel of his shattered heart had somehow lodged in his temples. And, he suddenly realized, his knees had dissolved. He was standing upright by the grace of Garrus.
Garrus himself stood straight and sharp and stiff as a dragon's tooth, mandibles, forehead plates, arms, legs, knees, shoulders, elbows, everything pulled in absolutely tight and compact, as if his carapace had shrunk and didn't fit.
"Check the other pods," someone said.
"Kaidan... All the pods have already been accounted for, you know that," Liara's voice, cool and infinite and sad.
That was when he realized the voice he'd heard was his own. Realized it, but didn't believe it. Just as he didn't believe she was dead.
"No."
Joker stared, but not because he appeared to have registered anything but whatever it was that had put that look on his face.
Garrus and Liara stared.
No doubt if Tali and Wrex had been there they'd have stared.
"No," Kaidan said again, and this time the word was steadier, less harsh and desperate. "Shepard survived Akuze. She survived the Blitz. She survived having a reaper drop down on her head... we thought she was a goner then, didn't we, Garrus?"
The turian tilted his head slightly. Acknowledging the point, but sorrowfully, as if saluting a fallen comrade.
"Shepard is famous for surviving against any and all expectations," he insisted, though a distant part of him could hear an uncurrent to his voice that sounded... mournful. Pleading. "Why should now be any different?"
He felt the subtle shift in the stance of the turian beside him. Garrus, at least, wanted to believe. Well, that made sense. Garrus had been there, with him, in the rubble of the Citadel, stunned by a grief that had just begun to smart, when she'd come scrabbling into sight. Garrus knew... he knew... she wasn't gone. She was just delayed. Any second now...
"It is," Liara said. Her blue skin was pale in the cold, slanting light. It looked dry and gray, like hard-frozen soil. Or ash. "It just is." Her pupils were contracted so tightly they looked like pin-pricks in the too-blue irises of her eyes.
Kaidan wanted to question it, ask how she could make such a claim, but he didn't. He couldn't. The asari had linked her mind with Shepard's, not just once, not just twice, but three times, in order to help her make sense of the information forced on her by the Prothean beacon and the other asari commando. The bond those links had forged between them was so strong it was tangible, so much so that he'd begun to think... no, he was forced to admit that he might not know how Liara knew, but he knew she did.
And that hurt.
It hurt him that someone, anyone, could claim any knowledge or any part of Shepard that didn't also-primarily-belong to him.
All the more so if it was the last part.
"She's... she's right," Joker said, his voice thin and distant, cracking over the words. "Shepard... didn't... she isn't... she..."
"What is it, Joker?" Liara asked softly, gently, stepping into the pod and bending one knee to bring herself to his level, putting a hand on his shoulder, compelling. "What happened?"
Kaidan resisted the sudden urge to hit them both with a singularity, just to force the heart-wrenching image they presented to break apart. Garrus must have felt something, a tensing of muscles, or a tingle of gathering dark energy, because his hand tightened on Kaidan's elbow, just enough to be noticeable. Kaidan didn't move, but he didn't give a damn about what had happened either. He cared about one thing, and only one thing. "Where is she?"
"Shepard... convinced me to leave... practically carried me to the pod... she was standing... right... right..." the pilot choked on the words, making a short, sharp sound horribly akin to a sob. Joker raised a shaking hand and pointed. He was pointing just beyond the hatchway of the pod, nearly exactly where Kaidan and Garrus now stood.
"The beam... it hit, broke the ship apart. I could see her falling away..."
"No." The word was so rough as to be nearly unrecognizable. Everyone pretended they hadn't heard it. It was almost as though he hadn't actually said it. "She wouldn't just fall," Kaidan said flatly. "She never gives in, not even to the inevitable."
Garrus made a sound that could conceivably have been a chuckle, if only it hadn't been so damn sad. "Especially not to the inevitable." Like Sovereign.
"She..." Joker's eyes fell away from them.
There was a long pause.
"Joker," Kaidan rasped.
"Caught herself," Joker finished. "There." He pointed to the framework of the hatch. "Dammit! I should have lunged for her! Pulled her in!" Joker exploded, so loudly Liara rocked backward in shock. Kaidan flinched, feeling the sound reverberate through his head.
"Yeah," Kaidan ground out, the word cutting through his tongue like ground glass, so deep and sharp it scored his soul. Liara shot him a warning look. He glared back at her, defiant.
"She... she... looked at me," Joker said more quietly. "Eye to eye, like she was trying to tell me something. Then..." He paused, licked lips as his throat worked. "She... let go..." he whispered.
Silence quaked through their little group.
"Not... entirely..." Joker added eventually. "Just.. one hand... she... used it to punch the seal-and-release interface..."
Kaidan, her voice throbbed through his head, making lights flicker at the corner of his vision, just go.
"... the door closed... I hadn't even heard the seal... that beam... that damn beam... it fired... cut... right... right between us... and..."
"Did it hit her?" Liara's voice was finally starting to vibrate with some of the tension Kaidan had been feeling since Joker had refused his offer to help him to the pod. This pod. The one Shepard had been lost helping him into. He was grinding his teeth together, the sound grating through his temples, behind his eyes.
Joker was shaking his head from side-to-side, over and over again. His eyes were staring into space, as if he was seeing something none of the rest of them could. "No," he said softly. "No... she just... let go."
"She was spaced," Kaidan translated grimly, startled at the sound of his own voice, startled that he'd managed to process enough to say it aloud. But surprise was surpassed by hope. "The hardsuit would give her some protection... if she could avoid the atmosphere... we have to get someone looking for her-now. How much air is in those tanks? Dammit... they made me repeat that hundreds of times in basic..."
Garrus was looking around as if in search of ship or a shuttle or a working radio, but Joker was hugging himself and Liara was shaking her head. "Kaidan... I'm sorry... so sorry, but... Shepard is lost... she's gone."